


Three Sundays in Spring

by wanderingstoryteller



Series: No one ever said this life would be simple [10]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alpha/Omega, F/F, Female Alpha, Non-Traditional Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Time Babies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-19
Updated: 2019-01-20
Packaged: 2019-10-12 23:01:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17476619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wanderingstoryteller/pseuds/wanderingstoryteller
Summary: Three times the Doctor went to visit her daughter on Tyco's second moon. She faces the challenges of being a non-custodial parent, her own growing concerns about letting Misca grow up in the shadow of the emerging Tycan empire, and an unexpected ethical dilemma.





	1. Talk Like Alphas

**Author's Note:**

> I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who commented on my last fic when I asked for feedback. You all had very kind and helpful things to say. I'm glad you are all enjoying this series and I will endeavor to keep new installments coming.

The Doctor meant to make it to Misca’s eleventh birthday party, she really did. She planned to. She even made her a present, a beautiful little music box that played Cole Porter songs and projected holograms of swing dancing figures on the ceiling. She had it wrapped up in beautiful golden wrapping paper and waiting in a cabinet beside the door.

Then there was the whole giant robot chicken incident. It took all day. That shouldn’t have really been a problem. She had a time machine after all. The difficulty was that the TARDIS had developed an odd habit of not letting her jump ahead or back in time with Misca now that she’d found her. One day for her was one day for daughter, no matter how much she begged the TARDIS to let her jump around.  

She knew it was terribly late on Tyco’s second moon, Kepler, by the time the giant mechanized fowl issue was dealt with. When they returned to the TARDIS, Graham and Ryan headed directly to bed while Yaz sleepily watched the Doctor run around the console room pulling levers.

“You think she’ll let you go where you want this time?”

“She’s got to. I can’t miss Misca’s party, I told her I’d be there.”

The TARDIS hissed and weezed as she took them to the capital of Tyco’s second moon. Her heart fell when she looked at the clock on the control panel.

“Come on old girl, can’t you take me back a few hours. Please.”

When she pulled the buttons and levers again, nothing happened. The TARDIS could be a stubborn soul when her mind was made up.

Yaz looked over her shoulder. “It’s midnight in the city now, you’d best just come to bed darling. You can take her the present in the morning.”

“No, I promised.”

“Babe, the party ended hours ago.”

“I’m going.” She knew she sounded petulant. Mostly she was just mad at herself and the TARDIS. “I’ll at least make sure the present is there when she wakes up.”

“Her mothers’ won’t be happy to see you so late.”

She fetched the wrapped present from the cabinet. “I’ll just leave it outside the door with a note.”

“Alright, I’m heading to bed,” Yaz was frowning at her the way she did when she thought she was wrong but knew it wasn’t worth arguing anymore. That just made the Doctor feel worse.

“I won’t be long.”

Yaz pulled her into a hug, carefully not to crush the present between them. “Good, you know I don’t sleep well in an empty bed.”

They shared a kiss full of warmth and promise before the Doctor stepped through the blue door.

 

The night outside was cold and the Doctor wrapped her coat more tightly about herself. While it was technically spring in the Moon’s capital, it really didn’t feel like it yet. It was a weekday night and the streets were nearly deserted.

The Doctor quickly crossed the main square to the side street where Misca’s mothers’ bookshop, _Carpe Librum_ , sat. To her surprise she noticed there was a light was on in the kitchen. Any hope she’d had of just leaving the present and fleeing faded when the first step of the outer wooden stairwell creaked loudly beneath her boot. By the time she reached the apartment door anyone in the kitchen was surely fully aware that someone was coming

She forced a smile before she raised her hand and knocked softly. The door opened quickly. Misca’s step mother, Maggie, frowned at her from the darkness of the hallway.

“Doctor?”

“I know I missed the party. I’m sure Misca’s asleep. I just wanted to bring her present.”

Maggie’s let out a tired breath, “Come in, we should talk.”

She led her down the dark shoe and coat cluttered hallway to the warm kitchen beyond. The same aging electric heater was laboring valiantly in the corner and an electric bulb buzzed in the overhead light fixture.

The kitchen table was scattered with hand written paper. Stanzas and stanzas of poetry sat awaiting the cruelty of a red pen.

The Doctor stood, hesitant to sit, the present still clutched under her arm. “I’m sorry. I’ve interrupted you in your work.”

“It’s alright.” Maggie was already moving to the stove, turning on the gas burner under a battered old red tea kettle. “You want black tea or chai?”

“Really, I’ll just leave the present and go.”

“No,” Maggie turned and leaned against the stove, her arms crossed. “You don’t get to run away. You’ve just come to my house in the middle of the night. You are going to sit down and we’re going to talk like alphas.”

From any other alpha, she’d have taken Maggie’s words as a challenge to be risen to or at least answered with a certain degree of snark. The women's grey eyes were so deadly serious though. She wasn’t threatening the Doctor, just very firmly telling her what was going to happen.

The Doctor sat. “Black tea then.”

“Honey or milk?”

“Honey.”

When the kettle whistled Maggie poured the boiling water over tea bags in heavy ceramic mugs and set one in front of the Doctor with a little plastic honey container shaped like a cartoon bee.

“I can’t let you leave the present. You’ll have to wait until you see Misca next Sunday to give it to her.”

“Please, I’m not asking much.”

“Yes you are,” the curly haired alpha met her gaze calmly. “Don’t you realize she’ll be upset if she realizes you came in the night and she missed you?”

Guilt made the Doctor’s stomach knot. “Better that then she thinks I forgot her.”

“No you didn’t, but you did let something else matter more than her and that’s so much worse in the eyes of a child.”

“I…” she had no excuse. Somehow robot chickens suddenly seemed very unimportant. “I’d have been there if I could have.”

Maggie cupped her hands around her mug, looking down into the dark liquid like it had answers. “I’m sure you would have. I’m not punishing you Doctor, but when you miss something in Misca’s life you can’t just show up afterwards with an apology and a gift. It’s not good for her, it’s probably not good for you either.”

The Doctor didn’t usually like letting anyone telling her what to do. She was however, intensely aware that she was in the other alpha’s kitchen, drinking tea she’d made her. “Can I at least see her tomorrow then?”

“No. You can come see her next Sunday afternoon like you always do.”

“But-”

“No!” Maggie barley raised her voice but she bared her teeth when she spoke. “You show up when you’ve promised her you will or you don’t get to see her at all. This isn’t a matter for debate.”

The Doctor felt her own lips draw back, the alpha side of herself stirring. “I’m her mother. You’ve no right to tell when I can and can’t see her.”

“Causing an unplanned pregnancy and then wandering off doesn’t make you anything more than a genetic donor.”

Something very ugly stirred inside of the Doctor. Words had always been her weapon and in a moment of weakness she used them to lash out. “Marrying an omega doesn’t make another alpha’s child your blood either.”

“No but raising Misca with Avia for the last nine years has made me more of a mother to her than you’ve yet had the chance to be.”

They sat glaring at each other until a clock on the wall suddenly unleashed the single sharp trill of a blue jay. Somehow, of all the odd things to make it off of old earth, novelty bird song clocks had been among them.

Maggie finally raised her mug to her lips and sipped her bitter dark tea. “I’m not trying to keep you from her. She is your blood and you’ve a right to be her mother too. I just don’t want you to hurt her.”

“I’m trying not to.”

“And I’m trying to be very goddamn civil to you after my daughter spent half her party looking out the window waiting for you.”

She couldn’t have hurt the Doctor more if she’d driven a knife into her heart.

“I’ll be there on Sunday. You have my word.”

“Good.”

The Doctor tried her tea and winced at the strength of it. It took about half the plastic honey bee to make it drinkable. She really should have asked for the Chai instead.

Maggie watched her, the ghost of a smile on her lips “For the record, I’m usually not this much of a territorial alpha asshole. When it comes to Misca though, I get protective.”

The Doctor felt her internal hackles lower, “you’re her mom, that’s normal.”

Maggie nodded, leaning back in her chair. “I just don’t want to see Misca go through with you what I did with my gene dad.”

The Doctor drank her highly honeyed tea and waited for the story she knew was coming. She’d lived long enough to see stories coming a mile away. They were what people used when they needed to explain something too complicated to summarize.

“My parents divorced when I wasn’t much more than a toddler. After that it was pretty much just my birth dad and me. My gene dad paid child support and  everything, he just wasn’t ever around much. He did love me and when he missed birthdays and recitals and other things he’d promised to be at, he’d send a gift and apologize the next time I saw him.  He was a politician and he really did have an important job and a lot of responsibilities.

“Eventually, as I got older, he stopped making promises, so that he wouldn’t have promises to break. Instead he would just come see me when he could. I spent a lot of my early teenage years waiting for the sound of his car in the gravel drive. He’d always show up late, usually right when I’d be done with my homework and about to go to sleep. I’d hear him and my birth dad argue at the front door. My birth dad would always say that it was a school night, that I need to sleep, that my gene dad should have called ahead.

“My gene dad would beg to see me, say he’d taken time off his political campaign, or some important government meeting just to come visit me. My birth dad would always let him in eventually. My gene dad was terribly charming and even after they divorced my birth dad wasn’t immune to it. My gene dad and I would sit in the kitchen and drink hot chocolate and talk. For an hour or two I got to feel like the center of his world, and then he’d have to go and I wouldn’t see him for weeks, sometimes months.”

She paused, staring down into her empty mug.

Very gently the Doctor said, “That sounds more like a happy than a sad memory.”

“I suppose it is in a way. As an adult I understand that he really did have a difficult job and was trying to be a good father. As a kid though, all I knew was that I wasn’t important enough for him to try and be around for more than those few hours. Not knowing when he would come made it worse. Some part of me always believed that if I were just a better daughter, tried harder, did better in school, then he’d want to come see me. I started to think that maybe I just wasn’t good enough, wasn’t worth his time. I know he never meant me to mistake his absence or presence as the proof of or lack of love, but it felt like that to me when I was younger. Do you understand what I mean?”

“I think so.” She drained the last of her tea. It was pretty much just honey at that point. “You were right to take me to task for this. I will do better for Misca’s sake” She actually hated ever admitting she was wrong about anything, but she’d had to do it enough times that she’d learned not to drag it out.

“I know.” Maggie took her mug and the Doctor’s and carried them both to the sink.

“You’re a good mom to Misca.”

“I try.” Maggie came back to the table. “Thank you for calling me her mom and not just her stepmother by the way. I know no one ever means anything by it but sometimes it is frustrating that all anyone has to do is look at me to know I’m not Misca’s gene mother.”

The Doctor frowned, “what do you mean?” Maggie was certainly tall, and her hair was curly but none of that seemed a reason for a stranger to assume she wasn’t the parent of a slight dark haired child. She had the same light skin tone as Avia and Misca.

The alpha gave her an odd look, “you really haven’t noticed the scars?”

“The faint ones on your face and arms?” They really were not that noticeable, not even half as bad as the smallpox scars the Doctor had been accustomed to seeing on humans for much of their history.

“They’re healed blue fever lesions.”

“I’m sorry, you are looking at me like I should know what that means, but I really don’t.”

Maggie sighed, “You look and smell so much like a Tycan alpha sometimes it’s hard to remember you’re an alien. Have you really never heard of blue fever?”

The Doctor shook her head. While she knew a great deal of history, she didn’t know everything.

“It’s a highly dangerous virus that causes blue lesions on the skin and a high fever. I was at university in the capital city on Tyco when the first epidemic hit twenty years ago. Betas are the most vulnerable to it for some reason, but alphas and omegas can get it too. The younger you are when you get it the better the chance you have or surviving but the more likely it is to make you  infertile. I had a severe enough case that I’m lucky to be alive. The fever damaged the psychic centers in my brain so badly, that while I still have ruts, I can’t sire.”

It was a deeply personal thing to admit but she said it like she was discussing ancient history. The Doctor had to remind herself that for a human variant, twenty years ago was a very long time.

“How bad was the epidemic?”

“That first one killed nearly five percent of the population on Tyco and sterilized a large chunk of the younger generation. The government was able to control and lessen the impact of later epidemics through mandatory quarantine procedures but their have still been several more. They haven’t developed a vaccine or a cure yet. The population on Tyco itself is still falling.”

A great deal of what the Doctor had seen in Tyco’s future was suddenly starting to make a lot more sense. She was going to need to read up on Tyco’s history to see if her theories were correct.

“Did it ever spread to the moons?”

“The moons have been better off than the planet, even if they’ve had outbreaks as well. The first moon went into full quarantine when the first epidemic hit the planet. They screen travelers so carefully they’ve never had a case. Blue fever reached the third moon at the same time it hit the main planet but their population is majority alpha and omega, so it never spread as quickly there as it did on Tyco. There have been outbreaks on this moon, but they’ve always been quarantined quickly.

“Children’s summer camps have been banned since an outbreak five years ago. We were just lucky that Misca was still too little to go to camp yet that year, a lot of children a few years older than her died or carry the scars now. Her elementary school was closed down for a month last year when one kid came down with it.”

The thought of Misca being in danger or getting sick filled the Doctor with a deep sense of worry and panic. Maggie noticed.

“I’m sorry, It’s late and I’m worrying you over something neither of us can control.”

“No, I’m glad to learn about it.” She definitely needed to get more books on the subject. Even she had enough tact not to ask Maggie to fetch her some from the shop in the dead of the night though. “You are right about it being late though, I should get going.”

The Doctor stood, stretching to relieve the tension after sitting so long and stiffly. She tucked the package back under arm.

Maggie stood as well. “I’ll see you out.”

They crossed back through the hallway. A cold drizzle was falling when Maggie opened the door to the outer stairwell.

“Are we good then?” the Doctor asked carefully.

“We are. Bring Misca her present next Sunday and I’ll even start thinking well of you again.”

“You think well of me?” there was a hint of amusement in her voice.

“Of course, I wouldn’t have a daughter if it weren’t for you. I suppose I’d also have more intact cups and plates but some things in life you just accept.”

“Sorry about that, I have been trying to help her figure out how to control the whole object levitation thing. It’s just proving challenging, especially as I’m not entirely sure how she is doing it.”

“Well take care, you want to borrow an umbrella?”

“Nah, I’ve got my coat and I’m not going far. Goodnight.”

 

She walked back to the TARDIS in the rapidly worsening rain, her hood flipped up. She kept the package tucked beneath her coat, as if it were as precious as the child she’d made it for.   

Yaz had of course left a light on for her. It shone out into the night through the TARDIS’s small window, warm and welcoming against the dark. The Doctor unlocked the door and stepped into the silence of the nighttime console room. She paused only long enough to set the present back in its cubby before she slipped down the hallway.

She took off her wet coat and shoes before she opened the bedroom door. The lamp on Yaz’s side of the bed was still one, bathing the room in soft golden light. Yaz herself had clearly tried to sit up and wait for the Doctor. A Jules Verne novel lay half open beside here, where she had rested her head on her arm and drifted off. Her soft dark hair pooled all around her sleeping face like spilled ink.

She looked so very, very young and yet in the same instant almost immortal. The Doctor’s heart ached inside of her chest in a deeply familiar way. She set down her coat and shoes in a chair as quietly as she could.

She turned off the lamp and slipped beneath the warmth of the covers. She did not want to wake her lover but the need to hold her was too great. She curled around Yaz from behind, pulling her into her arms.

The younger woman stirred and murmured softly, “You’re freezing.”

“I’m sorry darling.”

“It’s alright. I’ll warm you.” Yaz turned in her arms to snuggle against her, wrapping her own arms around the Doctor. The Doctor pulled her closer and let herself and let her worries slip away.


	2. A Walk Along the River

Visiting Misca every other Sunday afternoon proved to be one of the Doctor’s more pleasant adventures. She’d have liked to take her daughter on the TARDIS but Avia had strictly forbidden that. It wasn’t so much that she feared her daughter’s gene mother would run off with the girl, but more that she didn’t want to risk her suddenly coming back with the girl a year older or the same age but a year in the future. The Doctor’s own early unpredictability in appearances had led Avia to suspect that the Doctor was a somewhat unreliable time traveler.  

The Doctor was careful not to admit to it, but Avia’s fears weren’t ungrounded. She’d messed up once in her ninth regeneration and brought Rose Tyler home a year after she was supposed to. That had been something of a mess and taken Rose considerable time to forgive her for. 

After a few months, the Doctor had taken Misca to almost every single zoo, museum, park and other place normally utilized by non custodial parents on Sundays. They had both eventually gotten tired of actually trying to _go_ _places_ and often just spent the day wandering the city. Sometimes they’d picnic in the park or eat at a cafe. Often they’d walk along the river.

Originally the Doctor had always gone alone but lately Yaz had been coming along. She and Misca got along well. Oddly enough the girl seemed to find Yaz’s descriptions of twenty first century earth, the idea of a society without the dynamic of alphas, betas, and omegas fascinated her. 

One one beautiful if chilly early spring day, a few weeks after Misca’s eleventh birthday the Doctor, Misca and Yaz tool a long walk long the river trail, all the way to a small nature preserve that sat on the edge of the city.

Misca walked along the top of the low stone wall that divided the path from the water, arms held out like wings for balance. Although Misca was usually a clumsy child on solid ground she was a very accomplished scrambler and climber. The Doctor was fighting within herself between the urge to tell her to get down before she fell or join her. 

“Do you want to put your hand on my shoulder for balance?”

“Okay,” 

A cool wind sent leaves skittering across the path and caught up Misca’s poorly secured scarf.

“No!” she tried to snatch at the fluttering bit of blue silk as it was whisked away. She nearly overbalanced and the Doctor caught at her coat, saving her from tumbling from the wall.

“I’ve got it.” Yaz vaulted the wall and raced down the slope after the fluttering garment. She wasn’t quite fast enough and it landed half in the water and half in the mud. Hanging onto a low tree branch, so that she didn’t fall into the water herself, she retrieved the scarf.

Getting back up the slope and over the wall again proved a bit more challenging. She handed the soaking cloth to Misca and then accepted a hand from the Doctor to help her climb back over. 

They set off again, this time with Misca firmly on the ground and carrying the dripping scarf.

“Don’t worry, we can try and soak the mud stains out when we get back,” said Yaz.

The pre-teen shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. I never liked this scarf anyway, sky blue is an omega color. I only wore it because Mama Avia gave it to me.”

“What’s wrong with omega colors?” asked the Doctor.

“Nothing I guess. I just don’t like wearing things that make it easier for people to know what I am.”

The Doctor paused in her step, “You presented?”

“Yea I had my first false heat a month ago.”

The Doctor hugged her, “that’s wonderful news darling, congratulations.” She had been mildly concerned that Misca’s mixed heritage might cause her to never present or to be infertile. She really had to nuzzle her hair to catch the scent but there was the faint hint of omega pheromones now, calm and sweet like morning dew.

Misca’s hands tightened on the scarf and she did not return the hug, “Why does everyone keep saying that, like I’m supposed to be happy that people are going to start treating me differently now.”

The Doctor moved back to consider the girl. “Who’s treating you differently?”

Misca scuffed her feet on the cobblestones. “I don’t know, my moms I guess. Now when my friend Dina comes over I have to leave the door open when she’s in my room, just because she’s an alpha. Dina’s just a friend though and that rule is embarrassing for me.” 

Considering that a lack of any such door policy at the academy had lead the Doctor to get into considerable trouble with the Master at a slightly older age, it did not actually sound like an unreasonable rule to her. 

“So your upset about a door?” she asked gently.

“No, I’m upset because I don’t want to be an omega at all!” Misca threw down the scarf and stormed off down the path. A swirl of fallen pink and white flower petals rose up from the ground and followed Misca like a small tornado as she walked. As usual, strong emotion caused her telekinetic ability to manifest. The Doctor and Yaz exchanged a quick look before Yaz again retrieved the scarf and the Doctor ran after her daughter.

She wasn’t hard to catch up with. Misca was small for her age and her stride wasn’t very long, especially when she was stomping. It occured to the Doctor, as she fell into pace beside her daughter must have begun to trust her if she was willing to show this much anger and vulnerability. 

“Do you want to talk or just stomp, because I’m fine with the stomping.”

“You’re not as funny as you think you are.” She had her hands buried deep in her coat pockets and lean shoulders hunched. 

“You can’t blame me for trying.”

They walked a bit longer, while Yaz held back a few steps. At last, Misca began to tire and slowed before slumping to sit on the stone wall. The flower petals all slowly drifted back to the ground. The Doctor sat down next to her. When Misca began to cry she pulled her into her arms. She had centuries of practice holding crying girls. 

After she wore herself out, the Doctor offered her a handkerchief from one of her coat’s many pockets. Subtly the Doctor signalled to Yaz that she could rejoin them. Yaz came and sat on Misca’s other side.

When Misca had blow her nose enough to breath again she finally started to talk. “I wanted to be an alpha like Moma Maggie. I’d have been okay with being a beta, even if it meant I had to have a period every month and all that. I don’t want to be a omega, life is always harder for omegas.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because it’s true, everyone says it is. Omegas have heats and have to be careful all the time. Everyone treats them like they’re more vulnerable, less capable, and dumber than anyone else. A lot say they’re not good for anything but having and raising babies.”

“You know that’s not true. Omegas are as smart and capable as anyone else.”

“I know that. I’m not stupid. That doesn’t change how people think or act though. I know its not as bad on the second moon as it is on Tyco, or even on the other moons, att least here Mama Avia can own property in her own name and stuff but people still treat omegas differently,.

“I’ve watched it my whole life. Whenever anyone from the bank or the publisher or even just the plumber comes to the shop they always want to talk to Mama Maggie, not Mama Avia, even though Mama Avia owns the shop. A few weeks ago an electrician stormed out when Mamma Maggie said he had to talk to Avia, not her. Everyone just automatically assumes Mama Maggie is in charge of stuff while Mama Avia has to constantly fight for people’s respect the moment they scent her, especially with alphas.”

“You’re afraid that you are going to have to spend your life fighting to be treated with basic respect just like your birth mother has to?”

“Yes.” Her answer hung heavy in the air before she added. “I don’t want to fight, I just want to live my life.”

Yaz thought very carefully before she leaned forward, “No one ever wants to fight. Fighting is what you do when the only thing worse than fighting is accepting things the way they are.”

“You come up with that on your own?” Like most eleven year old Misca relied heavily on sarcasm to express herself.

“No, my Nan did,” she said with a slight smile.

Misca scowled at her, “What’s your Nan ever even had to fight for? You come from a world that doesn’t even have alphas or omegas.”

“No but in my time period women are treated a lot like omegas on your moon are now. My grandmother and my mother and other women have to fight for a lot of the basic rights, everything from voting, to birth control, to even just working outside the home. My country is better than most but I still have to deal with sexism every day. I’ve gotten a lot of flack for becoming a police officer because some people think that’s a man’s job.”

“That’s stupid.”

“I know, but it is the reality I face. I can accept it or fight it but it won’t go away if I ignore it.”

“It still really sucks.”

“I know dear heart,” the Doctor pulled her into a hug. “That is why people like Yaz and your mom are always working to change things.”

“They shouldn’t have to.”

“No but they do.”

They all sat for a bit just enjoying the late fall sun. 

Misca tilted her head back and considered the sky, “Is there anywhere that everyone just treats each other fairly.”

“Time and space are very vast, so there probably is. I haven’t found it yet.”

“Is it okay if I’m still not happy about being an omega.”

“You never have to be happy about anything darling. Your emotions are you own, “ The Doctor kissed the top of her head and again she caught the scent of morning dew. 

A deep need to protect stirred somewhere at the back of her mind. She would never admit it but she was secretly relieved that she couldn’t take Misca onto the TARDIS and into danger like she often did with her older alpha daughter Shiva. As quickly as the thoughts arose, she pushed them away as unworthy of herself. She’s met Misca as an adult, she grew up to be every bit as capable and strong as her alpha sister.

“Are you ready to head back? We’ve walked a long way and I promised your moms I’d get you home in time for dinner.”

“Sure,” Misca hopped up and was soon darting ahead of Yaz and the Doctor who walked along at a calmer pace. 

Yaz watched her, her eyebrows drawn down with concern. “Hey Doctor.”

“Yea?”

“When does the Tycan empire, the one we helped the rebels fight, begin?”

The Doctor kicked at a stone. “Technically it already has. The first time we were captured on Tyco is twenty years from now. The fifth empress just began her reign last year.”

Yaz shuddered involuntarily. “Is Misca safe here?”

“For now I think so. Things never get as bad on the moons, especially the second moon, Kepler, as it does on the main planet.”

“Do things stay like this?” she held her arms out wide to motion towards the path and its flowering cherry blossoms. 

“From what I’ve read, the fighting never comes to the Kepler at least. It’s already under the Empress’s control, but the lunar government stays strong enough limit her influence. There are never breeding or work camps here.”

“But they still jail dissidents?”

“Yes.”

“And you’re ok letting your daughter grow up here?” Yaz wasn’t really sure what she wanted the Doctor to say. She just knew that a deep sense of unease had settled into her heart.

“It’s not my choice Yaz. I can’t take Misca from her parents and this is their home and time period. This is where she belongs for now.”

“According to that logic I belong in twenty-first century Sheffield not at your side.”

The doctor turned and looked at her with worried green eyes, “That’s not what I meant at all darling. I’m not saying that Misca can never leave Kepler, or that I won’t take her off of this moon if she’s ever in danger. Honestly, I’d be planning on showing her the universe someday if her sisters hadn’t apparently already beaten me to it in the future. I just mean that for right now she’s a little girl who needs her moms and this is where her moms live.”

“I can understand that.”

“And your place is absolutely at my side or wherever you deem fit to be.

Yaz lightly elbowed her. “You’d best remember that darling.”

“Of course.”

They walked on enjoying in the fading spring light, trying not to let the shadows of the future weigh on them too heavily.  

  
  
  
  
  



	3. Epidemic

The main plaza of the city was completely deserted the next time the Doctor and Yaz stepped out of the TARDIS after parking on a side street. 

Yaz was instantly on guard, her sharp eyes scanning for any source of a  threat. She quickly noticed the posters.

 

**Level Three Epidemic Restrictions in Place**

**All Public gatherings forbidden**

**No non essential movement permitted**

**Report all new Blue Fever infections to official channels**

 

There were other posters, most dealing with how to report cases, how to treat the fever, and similar things. The Doctor had gone very still beside her. 

“Yaz, get back in the TARDIS.”

“What?” 

“I can’t risk you getting sick. Please just do what I say. I need to go check on Misca and her moms.”

“What about you?”

“I can’t usually get most things that humans do. Please Yaz, just do this for me.” That was only partially true but Yaz didn’t know that.

Yaz wasn’t happy but she also knew to pick her battles. They were only one street away from the bookshop. “You’ve got your phone, call me if you find any trouble.”

“I will.” She wouldn’t. 

Yaz stepped back inside the TARDIS and the Doctor crossed the empty square and went down Misca’s street. Carpe Librum was closed, the heavy metal shutters drawn down over the windows. She half ran up the outer staircase and banged on the apartment door. 

No one answered for a long time. When Maggie finally did she was pale and haggard with dark circles like bruises beneath her eyes. 

“Doctor, oh thank the gods. I need you take Misca and get her away from here.”

“Is she alright?” The Doctor tried to push past her into the apartment but the exhausted alpha held her ground.

“She’s fine.”

“Can I come in?”

“No!” 

The Doctor tilted her head slightly.

“Avia’s got blue fever. I don’t want to risk you getting it too. I put Misca down in the bookshop as soon as her mom showed symptoms and I don’t think she caught it too.”

Worry creased the Doctor’s forehead, “How sick is she?” 

Maggie slumped against the doorframe, fighting tears, “Please just take Misca and go, she keeps banging on the door and begging to see her mom and I can’t let her because I don’t want to lose her too.”

“Avia is dying, isn’t she?”

“Yes. I’m doing everything I can but I can’t bring her fever down. It’s been three days, that’s usually when...” she didn’t finish.

“I’ll take Misca to safety and I’ll come back with medicine.”

“There isn’t a cure for blue fever.”

“I’ve got a time machine remember?”

 

Misca fell into the Doctor’s arms sobbing when she opened the back door of the bookshop. The girl was wide eyed and half frantic from worry and anticipated grief. 

“Come on dear one, I need you to help me go get a cure for your mom.” She knew that would convince Misca to leave the shop. 

It was a short walk back across the square. The moment the TARDIS door opened Yaz hurried over. 

“Wait, stay back,” barked the Doctor.

Yaz stopped in her tracks frowning.

“I need to make sure that Misca doesn’t have blue fever before you can hug her.”

That proved to be as simple as quickly running her sonic over her and then herself. They were both clear. Misca was looking at the TARDIS with the usual level of amazement but she still had bigger worries.

“How do we get a cure for my mom? Have you got a medical lab in here or something?”

“Just a library and a med bay. I already know what we need though. An antiviral treatment for blue fever is invented thirty years from now. We just need to go get her a dose of it.” 

She’d been doing a lot of reading, although clearly not enough or she’d have realized that a smaller epidemic was going to hit the second moon’s capital when it did. 

It was a simple thing to go forward three decades and get a dose of the antiviral from a clinic on Tyco. While they were there, they all got vaccinated.The vaccine had been invented shortly after the antiviral.  If she’s been wiser, smarter, better, she’d have thought to take Misca forward in time and vaccinate her sooner, but she hadn’t.

While the Time Lord biology was different from humans, it was more or less close enough. Most medicines and vaccines designed for human variants worked for the Doctor, with some notable exceptions. Aspirin was deadly to Time Lords. Vaccines created using chicken eggs, as human varinets still used on Tyco, tended to cause the Doctor to spike a mild fever but that was manageable. She wasn’t sure why, since she didn’t have an egg allergy and never had the same issue with vaccines created with other methods. 

Misca’s parents had mentioned that Misca had always run a fever when she’d had her early childhood inoculations and she had a low one by the time they got back to the second moon. She barely seemed to notice, as she watched the Doctor pull on her coat and prepare to go out again.

“What do you mean I have to stay here?”

“That vaccine won’t be effective for two weeks. Until then you stay on the TARDIS.”

“If it takes two weeks, then you are just as vulnerable as me.”

“I know, but the TARDIS has gotten weird about timelines lately. I can’t wait to take the antiviral to your mom.”

“I’m coming too.” she said it with absolute certainty. 

“No, my dear one, you are not.”

“Why!” 

“Because I am your mother and it is my right to protect you.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

The Doctor took a slow breath. “Only one of us needs to carry the medicine to your mom and risk infection. I know how to give a shot, you don’t. Does that make sense to you?”

Misca wasn’t happy but she nodded. “Yes.”

“Then stay here with Yaz while I go help your mom.” 

She stepped through the door before Misca could argue more. The girl might have still followed her but Yaz moved to block it.

“You can’t stop me from going to my mom,” Misca told her.

“I’m sorry sweetheart, but I have to.” 

She crossed her arms and considered the woman standing in the doorway. “If it was your mom would you let someone stop you?”

Yaz actually had to consider that for a moment. “If I knew the Doctor was going to her with medicine and I had no other way to help, then yes, I would wait on the TARDIS.”

“Truly?”

“Yes. I wouldn’t like it, but I would.”

Misca sat down with her back against the consul, drawing up her knees so she could hug them. “I’m scared.”

Sometimes it was easy to forget that she was only eleven years old. 

Yaz cross the small room to come and sit beside her. While she wasn’t by nature a hugger, she was enough of one to put an arm around her shoulders. “I know.”

“I’m so goddamn scared.”

“It will be alright.”

“I’m not so sure,” Misca wrapped her arms tight around her knees. “I wasn’t scared when the school closed, it has happened before. I wasn’t even scared when the city went into lockdown and we couldn’t leave the house. It’s happened before and always turned out to be nothing. The first night we watched a bunch of old movies and everything felt okay again. We all fell asleep on the couch and I woke up to the sound of Mama Avia coughing.”

“Mama Maggie, got so scarred. She grabbed me so hard she left a bruise on my wrist when she pulled me away from mamma Avia. Before I knew what was happening she’d dragged me down the stairs and locked me on the other side of the door in the bookshop. No matter how much I knocked or begged, she wouldn’t let me in, she wouldn’t let me see Mama Avia.” 

“She was protecting you.”

“I know.” She looked so small with her shoulders hunched. “What if she’s dying?”

“The antiviral will work.”

“What if it doesn’t? Mom’s forty. Adults don’t usually survive blue fever at that age. Mama Maggie was seventeen when she had it and she’s covered in scars. Her lungs are still weak. She tries to hide it, but she coughs blood every time she gets a cold.”

Yaz didn’t know what to say. She hugged her tighter because there was nothing else she could do.

Misca hid her face in her shoulder and cried until she couldn’t anymore. 

 

Maggie tried not to let the Doctor into the apartment when she came back but she hadn’t slept in days and the Doctor had the strength to push past her. 

“I’ve got a shot to give her.”

“Let me.”

“You look so tired your hands are shaking.”

Maggie didn’t fight her anymore. “Is Misca safe?”

“She’s on the TARDIS with Yaz. I tested her, she never caught the fever.”

“Thank the gods.” Maggie was on her last leg. She followed the Doctor back to the bedroom but she was stumbling.

When the Doctor turned on the light, she almost wished she hadn’t. Maggie hadn’t lied when she said that Avia was dying. It shouldn’t have been possible for a woman that pale to draw breath. Her beautiful face and skin were a horror of blue lesions and her breath was ragged and shallow. 

Her skin burned when the Doctor pressed her palm against her forehead. She knew that she may very well be too late, may have been too late before she even learned of her illness. All the same she found a vein on Avia’s wrist and gave her the shot. The antiviral would work or it wouldn’t. Even thirty years in the future, it didn’t always.

She sunk into a chair beside the bed. 

Maggie sat on the floor beside her, too tired to find a chair. “You should go, if you stay you’ll risk infection.”

“I can’t leave her.” She spoke the truth, she’d see Avia safely back to health or down into death if that was the way it went. 

“Wake me if she gets worse.”

“I will.”

Maggie grabbed her hands. “I mean it. I can’t sleep through my wife’s death. When I had this before, I caught it because I tried to care for a girlfriend when she got sick. I fell asleep only for a moment when her fever was at its worst and she was gone by the time I woke up. I’ve never forgiven myself for letting her die alone.”

“I’ll wake you, I swear.”

“Thank you.”

She was asleep the moment her eyes closed. 

The night seemed to stretch on forever. Avia’s breath was shallow, but it never ceased. Somewhere close to dawn her fever broke and her breathing became more even. The Doctor knew she’d live.

 

She found Misca and Yaz asleep on the floor of the TARDIS console room when she returned.  

Her daughter scrambled to her feet when she heard the door open. “My mom?” 

“Her fever’s broken. She’ll live.”

If she’d had any tears left, she’d probably have cried then. Instead she just slumped against the console in relief. After a moment she straightened up. “We need to get more of the antiviral, enough to help everyone who’s sick. Then we need to find a way to get the vaccine to someone who can produce more of it.”

“Misca…” The Doctor had spent all night beside a sick bed, she wasn’t sure she had the strength left to explain the importance of preserving a timeline to a girl who’d just almost lost her mother.  “Come to the kitchen, we’ll talk.”

Yaz went to bed and the Doctor and her daughter went to TARDIS’s small kitchen. The Doctor boiled water and poured it over hot chocolate from a little metal tin. It was her favorite kind from a little shop with a sheep on its logo somewhere on earth’s moon in the twenty-third century. Misca ignored the bag of tiny marshmallows she tried to offer her. 

“Why are we wasting time. People are sick.”

The Doctor dropped small marshmallows into her mug until its contents weren’t much more than a mush of white goo. “Misca, the antiviral I gave your mother was from the future. I can’t give it to more people without messing up the timeline.”

“Screw the timeline, other kids moms and dads are dying.”

“I know, but think about it for a moment darling. If I bring back a cure for blue fever, no one will have a reason to develop a cure for blue fever and then there won’t be a cure for blue fever for me to bring back.”

“That doesn’t make any sense. How could you have me vaccinated or cure mom then?” 

“Because your both slightly outside of time. Your half Time Lord and your mom’s timeline has been wonky since she met me.”

“Can’t we just vaccinate a few more people at least? What about my friend Dina and her family. Can’t we at least make sure their safe?”

“No, I’m sorry but we really can’t.”

The bag of marshmallows levitated off the table and burst open. The small bits of white fluff swirled around the air like angry snow.  

“What’s the point of time travel if we can’t change anything!”

“Because there are small things we can change.”

“Why is my life small enough to change but Dina’s isn’t? What if she’s sick and dying right now, or her parents or her little brother? She’s been my friend since kindergarten? How can I not help her if she might need me and I can?” All around them the marshmallows began to brown and burst. Hot white goo dripped down the to the floor. The room smelled like smores. 

Everything inside of the Doctor hurt. “I wish I had a better answer for you. At your age I would say exactly what you are saying now. Everytime I try to break the basic rules of time everything just turns into ash in my hands. Sometimes I can save a few people, or change small things when they are not set points but there are limits. I’ve created more time loops than I care to admit to. If I thought it would work, I’d go back to that clinic and carry back as much cure as the ship can hold but I know it will just poof out of existence as soon as I start trying to give it out. It’s happened before. Timelines always reassert themselves.”

“What about just Dina and her family. Can we check on them. I swear I won’t ask anything else.”

In the end the Doctor caved. She had never been good at not getting involved. She went to the address five doors down from Misca’s parents. She had to force the door open when no one answered. She found two dead adults and a dead little boy. The adolescent alpha Misca had described, Dina, was alive but too weak to even raise her head. Her fever had already broken, she didn’t need the antiviral, just someone to take care for her. Finding the girl made her realize just how how many people might be dying behind locked doors who could still be helped.

She carried the girl a few doors over and left her in Maggie’s care. She started knocking on and sometimes kicking open doors after that. People watched her through darkened windows. Eventually some came out and helped her. They found other survivors, frightened and ill children in the homes of dead parents as often as not.

The worst was in a small flat when she was met by the smell of decay and the sound of an infant wailing. She found a deceased mother curled up on the floor beside a crib. The baby was alive and free of infection but half dead from hunger and dehydration. The child couldn’t have had more than half a day left before he would have followed his mother down into darkness. 

She was beyond exhausted by the time she came back to the TARDIS. This time she found Yaz and Misca in the TV room. A mostly untouched popcorn bowl lay forgotten on the floor. She was hungry enough to take a handful. She almost spat it out when she realized they’d put salt on it. Why would anyone do that? Popcorn was supposed to be sweet.

Misca was curled up under a blanket on one end of the couch and Yaz on the under. An animated movie with singing animals, where nothing really bad could happen, was still playing. The Doctor clicked it off and sat down on the couch between the woman and half grown girl.

The shift of the cushions woke Misca. She blinked at the Doctor. “Did you find her?”

“Yes, she was already past the worst of the fever. I took her to your moms so they could care for her.”

“Why did you…?” Understanding dawned in her eyes. “Her parents were dead weren’t they?”

“Yes.”

“And her little brother?”

“I’m so sorry darling.”

She was past the point of tears. She drew her arms more tightly around her knees. “None of this should have ever happened. It’s not fair.”

“If I could have spared you any of this, I would have.”

“Last time I checked you were just a time traveler not a goddess.”

“True. Doesn’t mean I don’t wish I could save my daughter from suffering.”

“All moms do. Mama Maggie has a poem like that. It’s one of the ones that always gets reprinted in anthologies. I used to be embarrassed about it, I think I get it now.” 

The Doctor held out her arms to her and Misca crawled over to let her hug her. She still didn’t cry, just curled against the safety of her gene mother’s body. The Doctor did cry quietly, wiping away her tears with her coat sleeve. She was so very, very tired. It was almost too much of a relief to hold a living, healthy child after seeing so many who were not.

“I’ll still always protect you as much as I can.”

“I know.”

“Someday I’m going to grow up and then maybe I can protect you too.”

“Of course you will darling.” If only she could have told Misca how true that statement was going to turn out to be.


End file.
